


always been my first choice

by insufferableknowitall



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Battle of Hogwarts, Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, F/M, Fluff, Hermione Granger is a Good Friend, Hogwarts Chamber of Secrets, Horcrux Hunting, Horcruxes, Mutual Pining, Pining, Romantic Fluff, Ron Weasley is a Good Friend, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:29:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21586891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insufferableknowitall/pseuds/insufferableknowitall
Summary: What really happened when Ron and Hermione went down into the chamber to destroy the cup?Hermione has a hard time believing all the locket did was scream.Fluff, FLUFF, FLUFFFFYYYY(also, I have not edited this, and I apologize)
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Comments: 6
Kudos: 91





	always been my first choice

“Wait...basilisk fangs...the bathroom, Hermione, come on!”

He grabbed her hand in his, pulling her towards the door that exited the Room of Requirement and would bring them into the castle, where they had no idea if they’d be safe or not. Ron’s mind was racing so fast he didn’t have a chance to think it through, much, overcome with the idea that had struck him seconds ago. Hermione had been muttering something to him, something along the lines of, “But it we find it, how are we supposed to destroy it? Now that we don’t have the sword…” And then, he had the idea.

“What?” she said, pulling him to a stop before they left the room. Nobody had noticed how quickly Ron had dragged them towards the door - they were all busy chattering amongst themselves, both excited by Harry’s reappearance, and nervous about what it meant.

“The chamber!” he said, waving his arms around and slightly hopping on his feet, tugging at her hand again to go.

She frowned at him in response.

“Basilisk venom destroys them, right?” he said, and he watched as the gears appeared to turn in her mind as he continued, 

“Reckon the basilisk’s still there, I mean, think we would’ve noticed if they carted it off at the end of second year, right? We’ll go grab some fangs, then that’ll destroy the cup, and whatever Harry finds of Ravenclaw’s, yeah?”

“So we go directly to the source,” Hermione said, “That’s brilliant, Ron! Brilliant!”

He beamed at her as she, now, had begun to bounce slightly on her feet. Together, hands still clasped tightly, they moved towards the door, only to nearly run into none other than Ginny Weasley.

"Where are you two going?” she asked, putting her arms on her hips and smirking, for a moment, as she glanced down at their hands. “I want to help.”

“No time for that, Ginny,” Ron said, pushing aside her, “Stay here, you’re not supposed to leave.”

"But where are you - ”

“Bathroom!” both Ron and Hermione called, running through the door before Ginny had a chance to finish reminding them that there was, indeed, a bathroom in the Room of Requirement itself.

They ran down the hallways as fast as they could, hiding behind suits of armor as students passed, unsure of who they could trust and who they couldn’t. They could have sworn they heard a student, probably a first-year, say something like: “Hey, aren’t those Harry Potter’s friends?” but they moved along quickly. They clambered down stairs, hoping they didn’t run into one of the Carrows, all the way down to the second floor girls’ bathroom, where years ago the two of them and Harry had spent many an afternoon together, brewing Polyjuice Potion.

Finally, they reached the bathroom, both out of breath, Hermione clutching her side and leaning over slightly. They stood in front of the sinks, staring at their own reflections in the mirror for a moment. “Merlin, I need a shower,” Ron commented.

“How...how are we supposed to get in?” Hermione panted, her eyes widening as she realized the one, incredibly large flaw in their plan: neither of them spoke parseltongue.

Ron chewed his lip and frowned. “I was thinking, I mean...I’ve heard Harry do it, a couple times, always says the same thing to get stuff to open, like when we were here, when we were twelve, and when he opened, well, the locket…” Ron’s voice trailed off, flushing slightly at the memory of the locket, and hoping that Hermione hadn’t noticed. “I could just try repeating it, I guess.”

He half expected Hermione to laugh at him, and was surprised to see her nodding encouragingly when he turned to meet her gaze. They didn’t have many other options - they had no clue where Harry was, by now, whether he was still with Luna or if he’d gotten wrapped up into some other kind of trouble. And they knew Voldemort would be there soon. Ron swallowed hard and then, to the best of his memory, repeated what he’d heard Harry say times before.

Nothing happened.

“Try it again,” Hermione said, placing a hand on his arm and clutching. “We’ve got to.”

And so, he did. Again, and again. Until finally, something happened - he said it right, and the chamber opened.

“You did it!” Hermione squealed, jumping excitedly next to him, clearly surprised that it had worked in the first place.

“Accio broomstick!” he called out, hand outstretched. Hermione frowned at him, and he shrugged in response. “Gonna have to have a way to get out,” he said, “Last time we had Fawkes. Don’t exactly have him right now.”

“Right,” Hermione said, her eyes still wide with something between awe and disbelief.

“Come on, we’ll go down together. Kind of like a big slide, ‘cept it lands on the hard ground, so we’ll be careful.”

“I can’t believe you both did this second year,” Hermione whispered, staring down into the chute.

“And it’s not even the barmiest thing that’s happened at this damned school. Come on.” He took her hand in his and squeezed, and then, they jumped.

They landed at the bottom with a loud thud, Ron positioning himself so he hit the ground first and cushioned Hermione’s fall. Perhaps, if they hadn’t been in the midst of a battle, Ron might have been flustered by the feeling of Hermione landing practically on top of him, the smell of her hair surrounding him, but he didn’t have time to pause. Instead, he helped her up, they dusted themselves off, and he led the way over rocks and rubble, bits of snakeskin and puddles, towards where he knew the snake to be.

“This is where I got trapped with Lockhart,” Ron commented as he levitated a couple of boulders so that they could squeeze through the barrier.

“That must have been terrifying,” Hermione whispered.

“Yeah, well, least I wasn’t Harry. He was fighting a giant snake at twelve years old. Being stuck with a batty professor sounds great compared to that.”

Hermione shook her head. “Still must have been scary, with Ginny on the other side.”

“Well, turned out all right in the end.” They reached the circular door with the snake on it, where Ron remembered Harry having to speak parseltongue once again. “Harry had to open this door, here, too,” he explained, and then cleared his throat. It took a few tries once more, but eventually, the hisses did the trick and the door clicked open.

Hermione beamed at him from below, clearly still impressed that he managed to imitate Harry’s parseltongue, and together they stepped into the depths of the chamber. Hermione let out a stifled shriek when they saw it - the body of the giant snake, laying on the floor, nearly all skeleton with bits of rotting flesh remaining. The smell was revolting - both Ron and Hermione covered their noses with their hands. A few rats scurried along in front of them, nearly tripped Ron as he made his way over towards the skeleton.

“It’s ghastly,” Hermione whispered, hand still over her nose.

“Still can’t believe twerpy, twelve-year-old Harry fought this thing.”

“Single handedly, too!”

“Mental.”

Their steps echoed loudly in the chamber as they approached the snake. Hermione wore a look somewhere between revulsion and fascination on her face as she eyed the snake, approaching a few steps behind Ron. Ron tilted his head at the skeleton, eyeing it’s large teeth, and then, with a flick of his wand, knocked a few of them onto the floor.

“How many do you reckon we need?” he asked, gathering a few up in his arms. “Might as well take extra, yeah?”

Hermione nodded, chewing her lip as she removed the goblet from her bag. She stared at it, saw her own reflection in it’s gold surface, and then held it out to Ron.

“Do you think we...we should get rid of it now?”

Ron turned around to meet her gaze. “I think so.” She motioned for him to take it, but he shook his head. “Nah. I already had the pleasure. You should do it.”

“But I...oh, I don’t think…”

“You can do it, Hermione.” He handed her one of the fangs, careful that the poisonous bit didn’t touch either of them, and then placed a hand on her shoulder. “You can do it.”

She knitted her eyebrows. “I...I just stab it?”

Ron nodded. “It might, you know, try and fight back, so you should do it quickly.”

“What do you mean try and fight back? You and Harry said the locket just screamed…”

Ron flushed. “Yeah, well, it also...doesn’t matter. You should do it quickly, just one quick stab and it’ll be gone…”

Hermione frowned at him and narrowed her eyes, as if trying to read something on his face. Then, she shook her head and turned to face the cup, which she had placed on the ground in front of her.

“All...all right,” she spoke, more to herself than to Ron, “I’ll do it.”

She held the fang up above her head, and as she came down on the cup, a piercing scream filled both her and Ron’s ears. A high-pitched hiss, and as she brought the fang down to meet the goblet, she saw a pair of eyes staring back at her in the golden reflection - not her own eyes, but those of another. Tom Riddle’s eyes.

But it was over quickly. It was nothing compared to the fight the locket had put up against Ron - the scream rang out for a few seconds afterwards, and then, a thick, black liquid oozed out of the cup, turning the gold black and leaking out, darkening Hermione’s boots.

Though it hadn’t lasted more than a few seconds, Hermione felt shaken - a shiver ran through her spine and she could still see those eyes, peering back at her, a looming feeling that something terrible might happen. She turned to face Ron, fang still in her hands, and then before she knew it, he had his arms around her.

“You did it!” he was saying, running a hand up and down her arm, “I told you, you could do it. Another horcrux down!”  


Hermione laughed shakily, letting Ron’s warmth wash away the cold, eerie feeling that had filled her stomach. He squeezed her once more and then released her, grinning widely. “C’mon. We’ve gotta go tell Harry, you don’t think You-Know-Who’s here already, do you?”

Hermione grimaced. “I think we’d know.” Hermione glanced up at him and frowned, searching his eyes for something that he couldn’t quite figure out.

“Wasn’t too bad, was it?” Ron asked. When she didn’t smile back at him, he raised an eyebrow and searched her eyes in return. “What is it?”

She glanced at the ground and chewed a lip, still standing so close to him that she could feel his breath on the top of her head. “What did you mean when you said it fought back?” she asked, looking back up at him with a fierce look in her eyes, one that dared him to avoid the question again.

“Well, I mean, that’s kind of a conversation for another time…”

“I thought I saw eyes. In the cup. Is that what you saw?”

“Well...not exactly…”

She narrowed her eyes at him and he bent under her will.

“I saw...well, I reckon it was because we wore that locket, so much, and it was like...I don’t know, it was like it knew me by that point, yeah?”

Hermione nodded encouragingly, while Ron continued to stumble over his words. “I mean, maybe that’s why the locket fought a bit more, with the cup we weren’t wearing it around like tossers, we haven’t even had it a day, so...or maybe I’m just, I dunno, more susceptible.”

“You’re rambling,” Hermione commented, gathering up fangs in her arms and handing a couple over to Ron.

“Right.”

They began to back the way they came from, Hermione stealing one more glance at the enormous skeleton of the snake, stuffing the remains of the horcrux into her little beaded bag and shivering at it’s cold touch. She held her breath, waiting for Ron to continue - she was afraid if she pestered him any more, he’d brush it off like he had been for weeks. Since his return, Hermione had a hard time wrapping her head around how easy him and Harry made it sound - she had a hard time believing all that locket did was scream.

“Well, it just kind of...said things,” Ron continued in a quiet voice, his words still managing to echo off of the chamber walls. “Things I was already thinking, so that’s probably why, it got to me, you know. But, well...it told me things, about being second best and all, and then, well, Harry came out of it, but it wasn’t Harry, it was like...Riddle-Harry, and...well, you.”

Hermione stifled a gasp and turned to look at him. They’d reached the entrance to the chamber, where Ron had left the broom for them to return on. Ron, avoiding Hermione’s gaze, picked up the broom and began to dust it off, as if he believed in the few minutes they were in the chamber, the broom may have run off and gotten covered in dirt.

“What did I say?” she asked him, her voice just as quiet as his.

“Erm...well, I really don’t think we should get into that right now, we’re kind of in the middle of - ”

“Right.” Hermione reached forward and put a hand on his shoulder, causing him to finally look up from the broom and meet her gaze. “I don’t know what it said, of course,” she continued. Her face was so close to his that both their cheeks had gone slightly red. “But whatever it was, it wasn’t true. One bit. I’m sure of that.”

The corner of his lip twitched up in a smile and he shook his head. “Thanks,” he said, mounting the broom and inviting her to sit behind him, “But how can you be so sure?”

“Because,” she said, sliding in behind him and wrapping her arms around his waist. “You’re not second best. Especially not to me.”

From behind him, she could see the back of his neck turn bright red.

“You’re not either,” he mumbled back, still stumbling over his words, “Not second best, I mean. To me. Well, also to everyone, you’re best at everything, so that probably doesn’t mean much, coming from me…”

She rested her face against his back and smiled, holding on tighter than she really needed to.

“Always been my first choice,” she said into his back, sounding much braver than she felt.

“You...you’ve always been mine,” he said back, his voice slightly shaky as he kicked off from the ground and they flew out of the chamber, both clutching basilisk fangs in their hands.

Moments later, they stood in the second floor girls’ bathroom, arms full of basilisk fangs, staring at one another with stupid grins on their faces. Hermione found herself wondering if perhaps, this was their moment - perhaps, as the battle began, they wouldn’t have peace and quiet again, she would never get to tell Ron how she felt, really tell him…

But then Ron grabbed her hand and pulled her along behind him, out into the hall. “C’mon,” he said, “We’ve got to find Harry. We’ve got to finish this.”

Though he was right, and his determination to fight made him all more endearing to her, a part of her wished she had just grabbed his freckled face and kissed him then, before the chaos of it all. She didn’t know how much longer she could wait.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I've always thought that the cup probably didn't put up much of a fight. They'd only had the cup for a day and it had been in Hermione's bag the whole time. With the locket, Ron was at his most vulnerable, and wore it for weeks on end. This is what I came up with!


End file.
